Single Mom, Crazy Kids

Last night, I was sitting on the couch and my exceedingly fat cat jumped up on the coffee table and started butting me with her head. It was really adorable. So I leaned in and for some freakish reason, she put her nose to mine and then licked the inside of my mouth. UGH.

I ran to the sink to rinse out, screaming "Cat! Why did you try to french kiss me? Why???" Anna looked at me calmly over the top of her phone and said, "Well, you can cross that one off your bucket list."

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Then this morning, I was rushing around, trying to get out of the house, when I headed into the living room and found David laying on the floor, curled into the fetal position with his hands jammed over his face.

Oh, no.

"David!" I said. "Are you OK? What happened?"

He peeked one eye out between his fingers and informed me morosely: "I farted to death."

My children, ladies and gentlemen. I always knew I was warping them but I never realized how much.

You know, it's always a little unnerving when one or the other of them shows their father's DNA clearly in a facial expression or glimpse of them in passing, or a mannerism. It's like a warm, familiar memory that makes me a bit wistful even as I feel like I'm greeting an old friend. It was hard after he first left, those moments. Now I don't mind them at all.

And when they show me so clearly that they're just as crazy and goofy as their mother, well, I can at least rest easy knowing that my DNA is in there somewhere, fighting the good fight.

Have your kids ever done anything that clearly showed the world that they were yours?

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